Why ARE young women hitting the menopause? Research reveals their fertile years could be shorter than feared – as these women discovered...

Sitting in her GP’s surgery, Lindsey Foots had no idea of the bombshell that was about to destroy her cherished dreams. ‘My GP was quite blunt,’ recalls the marketing professional from Urmston in Manchester. ‘I think he was as shocked as me.

‘He told me that results from my blood tests showed that, at just 33, I was post-menopausal. If I wanted to bear a child, my only hope was now IVF, because my ovaries were no longer producing eggs.’

Lindsey had gone through the menopause 18 years earlier than the average age of 51. ‘I was in total shock,’ she recalls. ‘I fled the surgery in a daze, sat in my car and cried so much. It was almost too dreadful to take in.